Ashley Shew

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports 16% of people all over the world, which is 1.3 billion people, have significant disability. Disability can happen to all people during their life. The built environment has an important effect on disabled people’s lives. This paper maps the literature on disability in the built environment, describes each category, and suggests new research directions using a disability studies lens while highlighting key emphases and gaps. Drawing from two databases, WoS and Scopus, a scoping review was conducted. Searching these databases using combinations of built environment and disability keywords yielded 1292 results. After rounds of screening, this paper uses thematic analysis to map and categorize the literature based on 172 journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters. Four categories identified in the literature include: (1) accessibility, (2) health and safety, (3) employment, and (4) education. Based on this scoping review and analysis, this paper identifies research gaps and future directions and demonstrates how insights from disability studies can be integrated into research on the built environment. This review is the first to address the broad question of the categories of research that have been conducted on disability in the built environment. Using a disability studies lens, we explain how future research can be conducted and illustrate the gaps and areas of emphasis in the existing literature. This review can be helpful for both policymakers and scholars by improving understanding of the existing body of literature and shaping future research.

Background: Structural ableism, defined as the processes, policies, and institutions that privilege able-bodied people over disabled people, is a root cause of health inequalities faced by the disability community. Unlike other forms of structural oppression, there are currently no adequate measurements for structural ableism and its impacts. Therefore, a necessary first step to addressing health inequities that impact the disability community is to create validated measures of structural ableism. Objective: This paper outlines the methods of an ongoing project that aims to develop and validate measures of structural ableism. The resulting measures will facilitate the identification of relationships between structural ableism and health outcomes at both an individual and community level. Methods: This project will take place across 3 phases. In Phase I, we will characterize the multiple factors that comprise the construct of structural ableism. We will begin by analyzing texts that discuss historical events, ideologies, and the lived experiences of disabled people to inform our understanding of contemporary dimensions of structural ableism. Simultaneously, key informant interviews with advocates and activists from the disability rights and disability justice movements will be conducted to further characterize the dimensions of structural ableism. In Phase II, the findings of Phase I will be used to inform the creation of an individual-level measure of structural ableism. Phase III will result in community-level measures of structural ableism, which will be developed using community-engagement studios with members of the disability community and publicly available datasets. This phase will build on the findings of the first 2 phases. Our methods purposefully include disabled people across all phases of this work, with a focus on maximizing the diversity of disability perspectives by including people across disability types and intersecting identities (eg, race and ethnicity, gender identity, geographic location, and other identities and demographics). Most importantly, our approach is deeply community-informed, drawing on multiple community partnerships from local and national organizations, a diverse advisory committee of disabled activists, advocates, and scholars, as well as researchers with expertise in developing measures of structural oppression, such as structural racism. Results: This project was funded in August of 2024. As of October 2025, our team has read more than 50 texts as part of our historical and policy analysis of the factors that characterize structural ableism. We plan to complete our characterization of structural ableism in the spring of 2026, with individual-level measures of structural ableism being developed by the Winter of 2028 and community-level measures created by the Winter of 2029. Conclusions: The measures developed by this work will lay the foundation for identifying and evaluating novel interventions aimed at dismantling structural ableism, which should be cocreated with the disability community. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/86976

BACKGROUND Structural ableism, defined as the processes, policies, and institutions that privilege able-bodied people over disabled people, is a root cause of health inequalities faced by the disability community. Unlike other forms of structural oppression, there are currently no adequate measurements for structural ableism and its impacts. Therefore, a necessary first step to addressing health inequities that impact the disability community is to create validated measures of structural ableism. OBJECTIVE This paper outlines the methods of an ongoing project that aims to develop and validate measures of structural ableism. The resulting measures will facilitate the identification of relationships between structural ableism and health outcomes at both an individual and community level. METHODS This project will take place across 3 phases. In Phase I, we will characterize the multiple factors that comprise the construct of structural ableism. We will begin by analyzing texts that discuss historical events, ideologies, and the lived experiences of disabled people to inform our understanding of contemporary dimensions of structural ableism. Simultaneously, key informant interviews with advocates and activists from the disability rights and disability justice movements will be conducted to further characterize the dimensions of structural ableism. In Phase II, the findings of Phase I will be used to inform the creation of an individual-level measure of structural ableism. Phase III will result in community-level measures of structural ableism, which will be developed using community-engagement studios with members of the disability community and publicly available datasets. This phase will build on the findings of the first 2 phases. Our methods purposefully include disabled people across all phases of this work, with a focus on maximizing the diversity of disability perspectives by including people across disability types and intersecting identities (eg, race and ethnicity, gender identity, geographic location, and other identities and demographics). Most importantly, our approach is deeply community-informed, drawing on multiple community partnerships from local and national organizations, a diverse advisory committee of disabled activists, advocates, and scholars, as well as researchers with expertise in developing measures of structural oppression, such as structural racism. RESULTS This project was funded in August of 2024. As of October 2025, our team has read more than 50 texts as part of our historical and policy analysis of the factors that characterize structural ableism. We plan to complete our characterization of structural ableism in the spring of 2026, with individual-level measures of structural ableism being developed by the Winter of 2028 and community-level measures created by the Winter of 2029. CONCLUSIONS The measures developed by this work will lay the foundation for identifying and evaluating novel interventions aimed at dismantling structural ableism, which should be cocreated with the disability community. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT DERR1-10.2196/86976

We advocate for a philosophizing of cyborg-technology relations that takes account disabled technology users. First, we sketch out how tech-driven ableism (“technoableism”) is present in most discourse about technology, and then address how ableism has shaped accounts of disability in philosophy more broadly too. We examine this in historical and media context, then turn to what an unapologetic disability-forward approach to cyborg-technology relations looks like, and what it means to listen to the cyborgs we know and love. This work draws from the interdisciplinary field of disability studies and STS work on crip technoscience. We situate this work mostly within North American media and history of disability and Silicon Valley boosterism on tech, but accounts of technology and of disability are not unique to these locations.

I want to remember to write a poem about chemoSeven years after chemo, but I stillForgetChemo is stillIn my ears and in my mouth andIn my brainChemoHospital sta

In this paper we examine the use of companion animals (pets) in studies of drugs and devices aimed at human and animal health and situate it within the context of philosophy of technology. We argue that companion animals serve a unique role in illuminating just what it means to use biological technologies and examine the implications for human-animal relationships. Though philosophers have often treated animals as technologies, we argue that the biomedical use of companion animals presents a new configuration of ethical and technological concerns that deserves more attention. Though it seems that companion animals solve many of the ethical dilemmas caused by the use of laboratory animals, the use of companion animals presents its own set of ethical concerns. This paper contextualizes the use of companion animals in research.

This review assesses whether Briggle and Frodeman offer an accurate depiction of the state philosophy at universities, and examines the prospects of their conception of field philosophy and the feasibility of their proposal in the context of other trends.

We are in a position today to appreciate the ambiguity of technologies: that they are good, and bad, and neutral and present challenges in different ways. Reading U.S. national nanotechnology documents and histories of nanotechnology, one finds that rhetoric idealizing progress without serious consideration of negative side-effects remains unfortunately fixed within stories constructed about technology. Though we should be better aware of the potential for unintended consequences and negative social effects (and, if anything, we should expect these things), the narratives about nanotechnology today still center on unlimited power over nature, much like technological narratives of eras past. David Nye, in America as Second Creation: Technology and Narratives of New Beginnings, explains how American narratives during the 19th century focused on technology as both transformative and stabilizing. In this time, it seemed as if nature was ready and waiting to be transformed and made useful for the new Americans. While negative effects are predicted and worried about by some elements, the overwhelming voice in discussions of nanotechnology come from the funding agencies, governments, and businesses that seek to profit from it. This article gives us reason to be more skeptical about the types of rhetoric used in this field. The rhetoric used in nanotechnology mimics that of earlier rhetorics of progress. By focusing specifically on narratives of progress within the United States, this article reveals the odd correspondence of rhetoric about nanotechnology with earlier American rhetoric on other technologies.